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My Macbook Pro will not boot up.  I turn it on and it allows meto put in my password to log in, but then the little "wheel" keeps spinning and I never get any further.  I tried to boot in safe mode and it wont.  I imagine i'll have to restore it but I haven't backed up my data for a couple months and I am not able to figure out a way to do it now.  Tried booting in Recovery mode to make a disk image of the hard drive and it wouldn't do it.  Bought a Firewire cable and linked it to my wife's Mac to move files over, and I can see the hard drive, but when I open it I see no files.  Really sick about this right now...

Death to false metal!

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You might need to clear the nvram or pram can't remember what it's called anymore. Key combination to hold when booting. It's been a while since I worked on a Mac.

Couple of things...

 

First, don't panic.

 

Second, one thing that may work is creating a Knoppix CD and booting from that

 

http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/index-en.html

 

You can boot from the disk into a Linux GUI, plug in an external HD and drag and drop files to that external drive. I've rescued files from Mac and PC this way on drives people thought were dead.

 

Here is a nice article on Mac file recovery. I anticipate fsck fix may solve your problem.

 

http://www.macworld.com/articl...c-wont-start-up.html

 

There are physical file recovery services as well, so don't freak out. They are pricey, but if the data is that important, it may be an option for you.

Thanks all.  Took it to our work IT guys and they tried everything they could think of.  The will keep trying but have told me that it may be lost.  Nothing I can't replace, but man what a headache.  Ugh.

It does sound like your hard drive is biting the dust. Mine is starting to act up similar to yours while making some tell-tale HD noises but I have backed up regularly and I'm letting it die a respectful death.

SO now our home Macbook Pro is running S  L  O  W  L  Y.  I mean I get the pinwheel of death all of the time.  All apps freeze up randomly.  As I type this it froze for about 7 minutes and then let me finish this sentence.

 

We can't get apps to force quit, and we have to restart it every time something really seems to crash.  I thought maybe it was Chrome causing it as Safari and Firefox seem to be better, but they still freeze and crash too, as well as other programs like Word, Excel, etc.  It also struggles with copying files to our external drives.  The USB portsonly work about half of the time.

 

I check the activity monitor and there doesn't appear to be a lot of processes going on.  We have 8 GB of RAM, so I am stumped why it is struggling to do anything.  

 

Any ideas?  Could it just be dying?  It's only a couple years old.

Reset your PRAM

 

Here's how to reset your PRAM:
  1. Shut down your machine. Yes, all the way down, not sleep or logging out.
  2. Press the power button and then press command-option-p-r. ...
  3. Hold those keys down until your Mac reboots again and you here the startup chime.
  4. Let go of the keys and let your Mac reboot normally.

Make certain you hold down the keys until you hear the chime. You can do it twice for effect & certainty.

Originally Posted by Maynard:

THanks boss I will give that a try!

Make sure you back up everything on an external hard drive, if you can!

 

Have you tried the built in Disk Utility function?  Use the First Aid function therein.

No, Cuqui, haven't tried that.  Been trying to back things up but it keeps freezing up.

 

Another weird thing is that I had closed Google Chrome earlier and when I tried Boris' suggestion, Chrome was open in the dock.  

 

Boris, when I tried the reset, it chimed really fast, then the screen went black and then white with a chime.  I kept holding it through that then released.  Was that correct?  It is still freezing up when I just type now so maybe I didn't do it right.

Strongly recommend you try the Disk Utility. 

 

You can find it in the Applications folder, use the search function if you've got trouble (type in disk utility).

 

When you use First Aid it has a running log of the things it is checking and their status.

 

Good luck

Tried the First Aid and did the repair disk option.  It ran through a bunch and then said partition appears to be okay.

 

Boris, I tried the reset again and this time some text, like the old DOS appeared on the screen for a few seconds.  Then it went into the start-up screen.

No, it actually tried to restart by itself and froze during the restart.  I did a hard shutdown and haven't touched it since.  Not sure what else to do at this point.  My work IT guy said I might need to do a complete re-install--perhaps the OS is corrupted?

Have you tried a Safe Boot yet? 

Try safe mode if your Mac doesn‘t finish starting up

You can use safe mode to help you resolve issues that might keep your Mac from completely starting up.

 

What is safe mode?

Safe mode (sometimes called safe boot) is a way to start up your Mac so that it performs certain checks, and prevents some software from automatically loading or opening. Starting your Mac in safe mode does the following:

  • Verifies your startup disk, and attempts to repair directory issues if needed
  • Loads only required kernel extensions
  • Prevents Startup Items and Login Items from opening automatically
  • Disables user-installed fonts 
  • Deletes font caches, Kernel cache and other system cache files

Together, these changes can help resolve or isolate issues related to your startup disk. 

Starting up in safe mode

Follow these steps to start up into safe mode.

  1. Start or restart your Mac. 
  2. Immediately after you hear the startup sound, press and hold the Shift key.
  3. Release the Shift key when you see the Apple logo appear on the screen.

After the Apple logo appears, it might take longer than usual to reach the login screen or your desktop. This is because your Mac performs a directory check of your startup disk as part of safe mode.

To leave safe mode, restart your computer without pressing any keys during startup.

If you don't hear a startup chime after pressing the power key, see what to do if your Mac won't turn on.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201262

Maynard, get rid of Chrome first to make sure you don't have some wonky Chrome app throwing it for a loop.  Chrome is really becoming a hog, even on Windows machines.   

 

Then follow Cuqui's tips.  You can always look into DiskWarrior if it gets hairy.

Maynard, one other thing about Disk Utility:

 

When you activate it you'll see a listing of drives on the left, on mine the listing looks like this:

 

WDC WD5000AAKS-402AA0 Media

 

Macintosh HD

 

When you run First Aid you need to run it on both drives, especially the bottom indented one which is where all the action is, I guess.

 

Good luck

Well, just an update...

We got ourselves a new Macbook Air.  8 GB RAM, 512 GB flash hard drive.  Love it.  Fast and powerful, and loving the flash storage.  But pricey! 

I did take the Macbook Pro to the repair shop since they give you a free diagnostic.  Turns out the hard drive is failing.  They can replace the old fashioned 700+ GB drive with a 480 GB flash drive for about $380.  The battery is probably starting to go too which would be about another $100.  Then an additional $50 if we want them to retrieve our data (I tried to back all of it up but not sure if everything copied since it was running so slow and crashing).

No real need at the moment for a second laptop but we might want one so we both have one if one of us is out of town for work or whatever.  There have been some nice deals on and off at Best Buy for a basic Macbook Air (4 GB RAM, 128 GB flash hard drive) for about $750, although we just missed that sale as we were waiting to hear about the Macbook Pro. 

So, some feedback please--get the old one fixed or wait for another sale and get a new computer?  What would you guys do?  Only real negative with the Airs is no CD-ROM drive, but we can get a nice external on pretty cheaply.

Thanks!

Maynard posted:

Well, just an update...

We got ourselves a new Macbook Air.  8 GB RAM, 512 GB flash hard drive.  Love it.  Fast and powerful, and loving the flash storage.  But pricey! 

I did take the Macbook Pro to the repair shop since they give you a free diagnostic.  Turns out the hard drive is failing.  They can replace the old fashioned 700+ GB drive with a 480 GB flash drive for about $380.  The battery is probably starting to go too which would be about another $100.  Then an additional $50 if we want them to retrieve our data (I tried to back all of it up but not sure if everything copied since it was running so slow and crashing).

No real need at the moment for a second laptop but we might want one so we both have one if one of us is out of town for work or whatever.  There have been some nice deals on and off at Best Buy for a basic Macbook Air (4 GB RAM, 128 GB flash hard drive) for about $750, although we just missed that sale as we were waiting to hear about the Macbook Pro. 

So, some feedback please--get the old one fixed or wait for another sale and get a new computer?  What would you guys do?  Only real negative with the Airs is no CD-ROM drive, but we can get a nice external on pretty cheaply.

Thanks!

Hi Maynard

I've had success with Diskwarrior by Alsoft fixing my drive when nothing else would work. I once had a problem and their tech support guy walked me through a repair over the phone. It's usually not that difficult, but they're there to help if necessary. Great support.

If your hard drive is failing, you might consider replacing it yourself. I replaced a hard drive on a MacBook without too much trouble by following the instructional videos from Macsales:

http://eshop.macsales.com/installvideos/

BTW, they're a great place to buy hard drives, memory, etc. for Macs.

Last edited by pduck

Thanks PDUCK!  Is there a way to reinstall the OS afterwards?  I don't know if we still have the CDs anymore.  I know the new Air didn't even come with any since it's all downloads now.  Or would it be easier to just install an updated OS if I try this?

I think downloading the OS is the easiest way to do it now. I just upgraded to El Capitan that way and it went smoothly (if slowly). 

Before you do anything, restart your computer and then repair permissions. You want to be working with a clean, glitch-free slate. Then make a bootable copy on another HD if you can. I use Carbon Copy Cloner for this, but there are others too.

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